Links in a Chain
by Lisa Telramor
Summary: Dark is a vampire who is served by the Niwa family, Satoshi is an exorcist cursed with a demon that slowly kills his family generation by generation. How it shapes their lives and the lives around them is a bit different in this world. Introspective character drabbles for a Vampire!Dark AU. Prompt taken from commentfic LJ community.


_AN: This was prompted by a comment on the comment fic community in Livejournal by Jordannamorgan. Prompt is: _D. , Dark + Daisuke (+ anyone else who fits in): Vampire!Dark-a wish inspired by (picture which is not linked here). (No yaoi, please. Just gen fic.)_ I had a lot of fun writing this. This is entirely in drabble format with different points of view. I probably won't write more in this world, but it was a heck of a lot to think about how characters would change if Dark was a vampire. _

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**Dark**

It wasn't that he meant to change the first born son of the Niwa family. He never meant to change any of them. Ideally they served as liaisons for the ever changing human world, and, on rare occasions, blood donors for when Dark couldn't get the blood he needed. He wasn't even supposed to bite them-they gave him blood freely. Yet time after time Dark changed his current partner, and they became...part of him. It was hard to explain. They weren't like Wiz, a familiar, but they were connected on a soul deep level. They were part of him, and as their creator, he was part of them.

Which made each and every death when it came that much harder. Dark felt Daiki die as he stole a Hikari construct, a painting meant to purify that had been corrupted over the years. One moment his mind was full of Daisuke and Daiki, the next there was a hole, next to dozens of similar holes, and Dark was falling as Daisuke screamed in his head.

Wiz caught him as Dark's brain spun out of control, grief, pain, and betrayal bleeding from Daisuke. Daisuke was still falling, his wings forgotten, his mind locked on his remaining humanity and the connections it held. Daisuke didn't believe this would happen. Daisuke thought that becoming friends with an exorcist meant the exorcist's demon wouldn't still rip his life to shreds. Dark wished Daisuke's naive wishes were reality. For now he dove to keep his last Niwa partner whole.

**Daisuke**

On an objective level, Daisuke knew that his family wasn't normal long before he turned fourteen. Most families didn't train their sons to become thieves. They also didn't keep blood bags in a special compartment of their refrigerator. He didn't think about it though. It was just life, and it wasn't like he ever met Dark until he was fourteen.

Daisuke met Satoshi when they were twelve. Satoshi spent all his time studying on his own and wanted to get out of school as soon as possible. Daisuke thought he was too serious and wanted to share the good times with him while they happened. Childhood was meant to be fun, after all.

Satoshi never seemed enthusiastic, but Satoshi wasn't enthusiastic about anything that made his socialize or try new things. He didn't have to be enthusiastic. He protested and grumbled and brought books with him, but he always came if Daisuke asked, and every time Satoshi smiled over something Saehara did or Daisuke tripping over his own feet or the Harada twins arguing over something that only they found remotely important Daisuke felt a glow of happiness. He never once doubted that Satoshi was his friend. It didn't matter that they never went to each others' homes and that Daisuke had half the conversations with himself. If Satoshi smiled, Daisuke was doing something right.

But the Niwas weren't normal. Normal families didn't have pit traps in their hallway. Normal grandfathers drank a glass of wine, not a glass of blood. Normal teenagers didn't end up bonded to a vampire or turned into one.

It never occurred to him that Satoshi wasn't normal either.

Satoshi's golden-white bound demon purred death at him as it ripped at the black feathers on Daisuke's back. And Satoshi stared back with blank eyes and hopelessness that Daisuke knew must have been hidden behind the small, tight smiles all along.

Daisuke fell into Dark's arms. He could see the blank look turn to pain as Satoshi mouthed one word…and Daisuke knew that it hadn't all been a lie after all.

"_Run._"

**Satoshi**

Satoshi wished he had never met Niwa Daisuke. If he hadn't met him, he might have tried harder to go to skip grades. It would have made killing him a lot easier too. Staying in the foster system was a choice Satoshi would have made regardless—stay in foster care or go with any one of the exorcist families trying to become his "guardians." Ha, no, he would rather deal with his demon on his own than be forced into the weapon they wanted like his great grandfather had been. He had died young. But then, everyone died young in his family. It was part of the contract made with the demon centuries ago.

Every generation of Hikari since the deal was made looked back with a certain amount of hatred to their family founder. Before they were exorcists they had been artists, but his choices left them with only one route to take. Krad was a demon in an angel's body, the irony of an artist that looked for aesthetic over reality of a being's nature. He was charged with killing Dark at any cost, and his fee was his contractor's soul—and a first born soul of every generation of Hikari after. That first Hikari likely hadn't thought at the time that the contract would last beyond the first generation, so he had included another stipulation at the demon's whim; for each generation that passed, the demon could take the soul of his contractor one year earlier than it had taken the soul of the contractor before. Krad had received the first Hikari's soul when the man was forty and had counted backward from his lifespan. Satoshi's mother had died at twenty with Satoshi no older than two at the time. Satoshi knew he wouldn't live past nineteen, and even shorter if he completed the task charged of Krad. That was fine really. He didn't plan on living long enough for there to be another generation of Hikari anyway. He just wished that Daisuke hadn't come into his life. It would have made his task that much easier.

"He's Dark's companion," Krad told him over and over. "You should kill him before he is changed, because for every companion Dark changes, their power is added to his."

Every time Satoshi replied, "It's too soon to act." He wasn't sure how much longer he could hold off. His control over Krad was blocked out in the first contract, but chains corrode over time, and twenty-one generations were plenty of time for Krad to find loopholes. And so he went to school, sat next to Daisuke, smiled and tried to ignore the voice in his mind chipping away at his sanity, pressing, pressing, always trying to find a crack. He told Daisuke not to trust him. He was sure Daisuke's _family _told him not to trust Satoshi. Daisuke would never listen. Not until it was too late.

**Emiko**

Dark didn't take companions. Not because they couldn't become companions or that they wouldn't live through a change. It was a line he drew for himself. Just one line he wouldn't cross for reasons he kept to himself. It used to bother Emiko that she would never serve Dark the way her father had or his father before him. In retrospect she was glad Dark had a line he wouldn't cross. If she had changed she would never have had Kosuke or Daisuke in her life.

That didn't mean Emiko didn't take every precaution she could think of when training Daisuke and fortifying the house against exorcists. Of course, she couldn't do much when Daisuke had actually _invited an exorcist through the door_. She glared at the pale boy her son's age and hated him knowing he would be the death of some member of his family like his mother had been before him.

Kosuke and Daisuke didn't understand, but Daisuke had only been a vampire for a month, and he had inherited his ability to believe in the best of people from his father. She had told Daisuke not to be friends with this boy. It didn't really surprise her that he hadn't obeyed.

"A pleasure to meet you," the Hikari spawn said, words dull without inflection or meaning. His eyes slid over her like she wasn't there, taking in the home and the spells Emiko had painstakingly woven into the walls. If he touched them, they would burn the skin off every square centimeter that managed to come in contact with the spell down to the muscle. Some spells she had added to make things as painful as possible. She still remembered her grandfather's death.

Kosuke met her eyes from the kitchen. They held the same pleading look Daisuke's had held when he brought the Hikari spawn to the door saying, "He's sick. It's not like he'd let his foster family take care of him."

And it was her problem why? Emiko had always been weak to Kosuke's eyes. She couldn't refuse him anything when he looked at her like that, not even her sworn enemy.

Emiko smiled, bright and false. The Hikari's eyes narrowed in on her face, identifying her as a threat and dismissing her just as fast. They always dismissed Niwa women, thinking that since they hadn't been changed, they weren't a threat. Emiko could list the dozens of Hikari taken out by Niwa wives avenging their husbands. The Hikari never learned that the Niwa family was a family of magic users first, vampiric companions second.

Her father was playing scarce. It was probably the better choice at the moment. "I'll make you up a bed in Daisuke's room," she said. She'd line every blanket with magic suppressants and healing spells. The faster he was better, the faster he was gone and no longer threatening the inner sanctum of her family and home.

**Daiki**

From birth Daiki knew what it meant to be a Niwa. A Niwa was a magic user, a thief, a loyal retainer, but most of all, a Niwa was Dark's familiar. To serve Dark was to serve the family, and serving Dark meant becoming a vampire in the long run. The change had never frightened him; he knew what to expect and had welcomed the shift as with it came heightened abilities. He hadn't really understood at the time that he wasn't a true vampire, not in the way that Dark was. He still aged, was still more vulnerable, and he wasn't forcibly nocturnal, though he found he was much more light sensitive. No, changing didn't really change much at all in the grand scheme of things. Daiki grew up, served Dark, married, and had a beautiful daughter that he raised to honor the family values—some days he thought too well. No, Daiki didn't have any doubts of what it meant to be a Niwa, so he didn't have any doubt about what his end would be either.

_The Hikari boy's face was paler than Daiki expected, paler than his grandmother's face had been when she cornered Daiki's father, desperate and determined. The boy's face was blank, at odds with the manic smile of his demon. The circle around the Hikari boy's feet was complete and dotted with red where he used his own blood to bind the magic. One arm was limp at his side and bandaged. The lack of color in his face was likely due to blood loss then. Daiki couldn't read his emotions; he didn't have to though, there was only one outcome with Daiki so far from Dark, alone against a magical trap and a demon._

Emiko was ten when Daiki's father died, torn apart by a demon in an angel's form. It had felt like his soul ripping apart; Daiki hadn't felt anything like that since and hoped to never have it happen again. There hadn't been a body to bury. The Hikari woman had been thorough. The corpse had been staked, burned, and the bones ground as if it were Dark himself she was trying to destroy, not just one of his companions. On some days Daiki looked at the cycle of deaths in their two families and felt sad. Others he looked back and felt vindicated that the Hikari woman had not lived much longer past that. His only real regret was that it had been the demon, not Daiki's own hands that killed her.

_He knew when he was cornered. Daiki smiled, because it was unexpected. "I had hoped that Daisuke could remain an idealist," Daiki said._

_The Hikari boy eyed him, the demon all but vibrating at his side to attack, wings trembling, held back by who knew what power. His fingers on his injured arm twitched. "I never claimed to be anything I wasn't," the boy said back._

"_I know." Daiki couldn't keep from hoping that there was something in Kosuke and Daisuke's hopes though. Perhaps that made him naïve as well. He let his power rise within him, a dozen spells sifting through his mind as he pulled for one that would cause the most damage. It wouldn't do to die without any sign of trying to survive. He hadn't lived this long to give up without a dagger swipe of his own. _

When Daisuke was born, Daiki knew he would be different. He was too much like Kosuke, Kosuke who was so different from those who had married into the family before. Daisuke brimmed with magic and potential and goodwill. For a moment Daiki could almost believe that Daisuke would manage to find a new way. That they could stop the cycle. But then Daiki had never been an idealist, and it was too late to become one now. He had been a pessimist ever since his wife died. When Krad returned, Daiki put his will in order. He didn't have the same faith Daisuke held.

_Magic streaked toward him, a binding spell that Daiki deflected with an incantation Kosuke brought back from his studies abroad. Krad snarled and twisted, and the Hikari boy went white as the demon slipped from whatever bindings held him to one place. Daiki smiled grimly._

_The Hikari boy swore, but the spells kept coming, kept circling, trying to get him into the same circle as the boy. Krad tried to push him away. Daiki wondered if Krad was blind with killing rage and the act was unconscious or that he knew if the Hikari boy bound him in that circle Daiki would stab him through the heart in an instant, circle's binding be damned. He was dead either way by this point._

_Daiki took to the air and Krad followed with white-fire spells that sizzled against Daiki's shield. The demon's face warped, showing his true colors with fangs and claws and eyes just on the edge of red. The Hikari boy shouted spells and orders but they fell on deaf ears. Krad had his prey in sight and no order could trump his primary objective._

Daiki's life was filled with profound joy alongside profound sorrow. His first spell, his first successful flight after turning, his meeting his wife, his marriage, his daughter's birth, his daughter's marriage, Daisuke's birth… His grandfather's death, his mother's wasting sickness, his father's dismemberment, Dark's wild depressive days, the death of his first love, the death of his wife, Emiko's lost, lost expression when Dark refused to show himself for years after her mother's death. Daiki treasured all his memories, the good and the bad. He hoped his grandson would too. He had known much happiness and much hardship already. There would only be more to come. Daiki could only hope that his last moment, the last seconds of memory before his death, were not filled with any of his regrets in life. Because he didn't want that to be his legacy to Daisuke or to Emiko. And he didn't want his last impression on Dark to be sad.

_The sword moved fast, faster than Daiki could move at his age. Once he could have dodged it, but for all his tricks and skills, he wasn't a young man any longer. Krad's sword bit deep into Daiki's shoulder, glancing odd his shoulder and striking his collarbone as it slid through. Daiki's wings gave out, and they plummeted, Krad above him like a heavenly avenger with demon eyes and a wicked smile. Daiki fell in the Hikari boy's circle and felt the binding take. It was to seal off his vampiric powers and disconnect him from Dark's influence. It was meant to cripple him, but it didn't have the power to seal everything. Daiki wasn't the head of a family of sorcerers for nothing. He dug in deep and Krad twisted his sword and spouted vitriol. Daiki gritted his teeth and disconnected as the Hikari boy watched blankly, his cross-staff by his side in his good hand like he knew he should stab but couldn't bring himself to do it. Daiki's hand slid in his own blood, dragging the mess into a sigil, one of power, one fueled by life energy and life blood. And he was alive, not a true vampire, and the Hikari boy should have calculated for this, but he knew he hadn't when the boy's eyes went wide and he lunged, no longer indecisive. Too late._

_The sky flashed and a bolt of energy struck where Krad knelt over him, hitting Daiki in the chest. Krad howled, injured, his wings burned and twisted and his sword arm cooked, lifeless flesh. The sword was blasted free from Daiki's wound, and he bled out, barely conscious from the bolt. The Hikari boy looked horrified, by his demon or by Daiki, Daiki couldn't tell. "I hope he lives," Daiki tried to say, meaning Daisuke. "I hope he thrives with or without you." He was not sure if he actually said them out loud or not._

_Krad roared and shrieked. Daiki twitched and the world went dull around the edges. The Hikari boy's face became blank once more._

"_I'm sorry," he said. His voice was hoarse. The cross staff lifted. Daiki didn't feel it come down._

Daiki didn't know how Daisuke would react to his death. He knew Dark though. Dark would act, and Dark would strike, and Daiki wouldn't have to go unavenged long. He was sad that the wheel would turn that way but not for his sake. It was always worse for those left behind.

**Riku**

Riku longed for the day when things had been normal. Her boyfriend hadn't been a vampire, her sister wasn't obsessed with her boyfriend's more ancient vampire leader, and she never knew anything about magic. Some days she really wishes she hadn't leaned in and kissed Niwa because that's where everything went down the tubes.

If something's blowing up, blame Niwa. Art gets stolen, blame Dark. If a student shows up unconscious, it's probably both of them and she should just keep her nose out of it because any further and they'd be dragging her to learn magic like Daisuke's oddly peppy mother was hinting at whenever she saw Riku pass by. (It was bad enough Risa thought she could read tarot. (Riku pretended that her sister's predictions didn't come true. Nope, no magic here.))

It wasn't that she didn't love Niwa—she did, and that was the problem. That stubborn affection had her up at all hours, running across rooftops, fumbling through a sealing spell, and acting out the swooning scene from _Dracula_ the few times Daisuke had gone too long without a blood fix. (She refused to admit that it was even remotely pleasurable because the lightheaded feeling she got from blood loss was not worth whatever (tiny! Totally tiny!) pleasure she got from having him that close to her neck.) She just…missed it being uncomplicated. She'd run across a hundred roofs for Daisuke, but it ticked her off sometimes that she needed to. She missed a steady sleep schedule.

It couldn't be healthy to spend this much time on rooftops.

In winter. Or rain. Or ever.

Still, when she watched Daisuke fly, his wings stretched out and covered with black feathers that tickled her face when they hugged with them out… When she watched him glide and move with more grace than she would ever possess… When he was away from Dark, silhouetted against the moon, just Daisuke and his fine-boned hands, and hit red hair, and gangly limbs he was still growing into… She felt very calm and happy and so full of emotions she didn't know what to do with herself.

Whenever he saw her watching him, he smiled. And she loved knowing that smile was for her and that she was the only one he let explore what parts of him were no longer human.

**Kosuke**

When Kosuke met Emiko, he hadn't thought he would end up married to her. She had been too far above him in his mind then, too perfect to marry a quiet, bookish man like him. If someone had told him he would spend most of his son's lifetime away from home working to become an exorcist then, he would have laughed. Now Kosuke knows he is the balance of his household, reigning Emiko in, providing charms to suppress vampiric powers so Daisuke can attend school, and the only person outside of Dark that has any chance of fazing the Hikari demon. When Dark is distracted, when Daiki is busy, when Daisuke is drained…Kosuke and Emiko are the last line of defense against a demon that wants to kill their little boy, and Kosuke will be damned before he let that happen.

Kosuke sees the Hikari boy once, the day Daisuke brings him to visit because he is worried. Daisuke is too much like Kosuke in that regard—too willing to help someone in pain even if that someone is the enemy. The demon is not with him, and the demon's presence is so faint that Kosuke is sure that it is on the other side of the city.

The Hikari boy—Satoshi, he will not dehumanize him as his wife and father and law do—stares him down, defensive and wary when Daisuke leaves them alone together for a moment. "What?" he asks, his voice harsh with the rasp of illness lurking in it.

Kosuke lets him glare and takes him in. Satoshi is no older than Daisuke, but he is much more world weary and drained. His eyes look older than Emiko's on Emiko's darker nights. "Daisuke thinks of you as a friend," Kosuke says.

"Daisuke doesn't have a self preservation instinct," Satoshi retorts. Under his breath he adds, "I shouldn't have come here."

Kosuke digs the charm out of his pocket. It is something he has been working on since the day Emiko told him about the Hikari family and their bound-demon curse. He has been working on something similar for Daisuke as well, something that would remove Daisuke from Dark's influence if he so chose. The charm in his hand could sever the bond Satoshi has with the demon. The price would be that the demon would have nothing to restrain him any longer. It would be a last resort. He presses the charm against Satoshi's palm. "Take this. It will only work once. Save it for when you really need it."

Satoshi frowns at the charm, likely using his magic to scan it, sensing through what its use was. His eyes go wide, then narrow. "You…"

"I married into this family," Kosuke says, matter of fact. "I judge on individual actions, not family history. I want everyone to end happily. And since Daisuke is determined to befriend you, that includes you as well."

Satoshi looks like he wants to toss the charm away and wipe his hand clean of Kosuke's residual magic. Instead, he slips the charm in his pocket. "You're a fool," he says.

Kosuke smiles. "I prefer to think I'm an optimist."

When Daisuke returns, the two are ignoring each other. Kosuke can only hope Satoshi will choose the right moment to break his curse.

**Risa**

She had called him a fallen angel. He had laughed and laughed until she felt hurt and embarrassed, then he had kissed her and told her that he had never been anything so pure as that.

She never would have thought he was a vampire.

It was something he hadn't wanted her to know, but with Dark Risa couldn't not seek out the truth. She loved him. It didn't matter if he was an angel, a demon, a vampire, or a soul-sucking incubus. Risa wanted to know everything about him. She wanted to hear his hopes and fears, to comfort him when he faced whatever nightmares she could see in his in his eyes on certain heists. She wanted to be there when he left for a heist and have tea waiting for him when he returned. She wanted to touch his feathered wings, groom them into shape, pulling each sleek, black feather into perfect order and to massage the strain of flying from his back. Risa thought that if Dark asked, she would even give him her blood.

And so night after night, nights when the moon was full or dark or the clouds blotted out the sky or stars shone bright, Risa slipped out her bedroom window. It was nights like this night, when the moon was mostly full and the stars were out, and it wasn't raining or snowing or sleeting, not too hot or cold, that she liked best. Even if there wasn't a heist, these were the nights Dark often flew.

Risa left Riku curled up in her comforter; hand curled around a necklace Daisuke gave her. Sometimes the necklace made Risa uncomfortable, but she wasn't sure why. If Riku knew how often Risa slipped out the window, she'd have found a way to nail it shut. It was a good thing she didn't know. It made getting out easy.

The air was cool with a light breeze, the perfect temperature for a light jog—or for flying. Risa took her jacket and a flashlight, and climbed down the tree near her window, through the back yard, and to the road. Dark liked the park when he flied for fun. The park was closer than the forests beyond town, and it had enough trees that if he needed to Dark could hide as fully as he had in the actual woods. As Risa made her way towards it, she kept her gaze up. She saw more bats and bugs than phantom thieves most nights, but she could pick apart the constellations and imagine new ones—stars forming the shape of wings and feathers, tracing images onto the black night sky.

Five minutes from the park she saw him. He flew a hand's length above the treetops and his feathers gleamed purple as he passed one of the electric street lights. He was looking up, at the stars or the moon, or maybe something only he could see, intent on what he was watching. His wings were steady as he glided. He was using the breeze, dipping closer and closer to the leaves until he flapped once and repeated the slow downward glide again.

It made something in her chest go tight and her breath speed up. Dark wasn't an angel. Even with her starry-eyed looks she could see that it wasn't possible for him to have ever been one. But "vampire" made her think leather and bat wings, and inhuman chill that Dark most definitely did not have. There was a gap somewhere in mythology for what he was. As she got close enough to see Dark's eyes slide closed and a smile cross his face completely at peace she was sure someone somewhere had messed up. Because vampires never looked like dark angels in the stories and demons didn't come in white in fairy tales.

Someday Risa hoped she could get Dark's real story. Then she'd write her own fairy tale about a spirit that loved to fly and live life at the edge of acceptable. And somewhere, in the pages, Dark would always be free, flying and smiling as he did on the best of nights and Risa would be smiling with him.

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_AN2: For those of you who are my regular readers, I'm sorry for not updating in so long. I have spent the last year working on an ofic project that will likely take several more years to be completed. I graduated this year from college and am heading to grad school. I will continue to write fanfiction, but any of the longer works I start won't be finished for a long time yet, and I don't plan to post longer works unless I complete them as it doesn't seem fair to start posting and abandon a fic. Thanks for all the reviews over the years. :) They really make my day. If you're interested in more drabble works or a few fics not posted on FF dot net due to content ratings, check out my live journal. I have the same name there as here. ^_^_


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